You've been a bad girl...

I have a formspring account, where people ask me questions anonymously and I will answer them. But the number of times people have said something along the lines of "what's the dirtiest thing you've ever done?" is rather large. And I'm always baffled when trying to come up with a response to this. I don't view my sex life as something negative, which is what the word dirty seems to imply. And how would one even begin to categorise things into 'more dirty' or 'less dirty' - how does one compare sex acts?

Dirty = unclean. 

I did some googling (I know, impressive research!) and found a definition. Just in case I was wildly wrong (unthinkable, I know!) and here's what I came up with.

Definitions of unclean:

1. dirty, soiled or foul
2. not moral or chaste
3. ritually or ceremonially impure or unfit 

So by saying something or someone is dirty, (assuming you don't mean they're covered in mud)you're making a few assumptions. Let's leave out the ritual definition, because I assume that people don't use that one very often in this kind of scenario (or at least, I'm not going to address it. So there.) You're assuming they 

a) Have no morals, or knowingly go against morals, (I'm assuming this isn't what's meant between two people in a sexual relationship, so we'll leave that one out too)

b) Don't abstain from sex, or do have sexual intentions,

and that 

c) having sex or sexual intentions is BAD!

Ok, so obviously when people say 'ooh you dirty boy, you need punishing', they're not consciously thinking that the fact that their partner wants sex with them is bad, or they wouldn't want to 'do terrible things to them', but it still reinforces the shame and guilt felt around sex.


We hear these sorts of phrases all the time:

• 'You've been a naughty girl...'

• 'I'm going to do terrible things to you...'

• 'You filthy thing...'

Euphemisms such as 'doing the dirty', descriptions of sex as 'filthy', 'naughty', 'dirty' etc are common-place.

Why does it all have to be so negatively phrased? I guess it all falls back to the virgin/whore dichotomoy we still struggle to break free from, where virgins are good, clean girls who never have sex, and 'whores' are unclean, dirty, sexual beings. There's so much to say on this topic but that would completely derail this post. I'll try to keep to the topic at hand.

As a society we have this huge shame and guilt issue around sex, but even in the kink community, which is generally pretty good on the consent and sex-positivity side of things, falls down here.

Yes, it can be all very fun in a roleplay scenario, or during a scene for those who enjoy humiliation and other such things, but when this transcends into common useage it turns an act that can be exhilerating, beautiful, mind-blowing, intimate, euphoric, hot, and just great fun into something which make people feel shame, guilt and negativity. And this isn't because I think all sex needs to be beautiful and deep and intimate. Sure, some sex is, but some is raw and animalistic involving teeth and nails and fists. I still wouldn't call one more 'naughty' or 'bad' or 'filthy' than the other. That, to me, seems to be using completely the wrong language to talk about it.

So, instead of seeing your partner(s) in their lingerie/latex catsuit/banana costume/birthday suit/other (delete as appropriate) and saying 'You bad girl(s)/boy(s)/person/people/dinosaur, I'm going to take you upstairs and do terrible things to you', why can't we tell them how awesome they are, and how you're going to do wonderful things to them? Then you can throw them on/in the bed/cage/dungeon/garden/paddling pool and beat/fuck/tickle/glomp them silly.